Unholy Dimensions

by Jeffrey Thomas, Peter A. Worthy (Illustrator), James Oberschlake (Illustrator)

"Unholy Dimensions: Lovecraftian Tales" collects 27 eerie short stories inspired by the writing of H. P. Lovecraft, creator of the Cthulhu Mythos, but told through the unique imagination of Jeffrey Thomas - acclaimed author of "Punktown," "Deadstock," "Blue War," and "Monstrocity."

Contents:
- The Bones of the Old Ones
- The Avatars of the Old Ones
- The Young of the Old Ones
- Red Glass
- I Married a Shoggoth
- The Ice Ship
- Servile
- Conglomerate
- Book Worm
- Through Obscure Glass
- The Servitors
- The Doom in the Room
- Out of the Belly of Sheol
- Ascending to Hell
- The Third Eye
- The Face of Baphomet
- Cells
- The House on the Plain
- The Fourth Utterance
- The Writing on the Wall
- Corpse Candles
- Yoo-Hoo, Cthulhu
- Lost Soul
- Pazuzu's Children
- The Boarded Window
- What Washes Ashore
- The Cellar Gods

Genres: Horror, Lovecraftian, Fiction, Weird Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Science Fiction

267 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

Jeffrey Thomas is an American author of weird fiction, the creator of the acclaimed setting Punktown. Books in the Punktown universe include the short story collections Punktown, Voices from Punktown, Punktown: Shades of Grey (with his brother, Scott Thomas), and Ghosts of Punktown. Novels in that setting include Deadstock, Blue War, Monstrocity, Health Agent, Everybody Scream!, Red Cells, and The New God. Thomas’s other short story collections include The Unnamed Country, Gods of a Nameless Country, The Endless Fall, Haunted Worlds, Worship the Night, Thirteen Specimens, Nocturnal Emissions, Doomsdays, Terror Incognita, Unholy Dimensions, AAAIIIEEE!!!, Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood, Carrion Men, Voices from Hades, The Return of Enoch Coffin, and Entering Gosston. His other novels include The American, Boneland, Subject 11, Letters From Hades, The Fall of Hades, The Exploded Soul, The Nought, Thought Forms, Beyond the Door, Lost in Darkness, and A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers.

His work has been reprinted in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII (editor Karl Edward Wagner), The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror #14 (editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling), and Year’s Best Weird Fiction #1 (editors Laird Barron and Michael Kelly). At NecronomiCon 2024 Thomas received the Robert Bloch Award for his contributions to weird fiction.

Though he considers Viet Nam his second home, Thomas lives in Massachusetts.

Reviews

[(shan) Littlebookcove · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unholy Dimensions by Jeffrey Thomas I must Admit I'm fairly new to the Lovecraft Mytho's, Lovecraft is someone who has crept up on me this year. To the point I adore his work's considering when I first picked up one of his book's I just couldn't get into it at all. But I persevered and now I adore his work's.Reading Thomas's collection has really enlightened my outset to the Lovecraft Mytho's and The world view of Lovecraft In this book there are many aspects to different mindset's as well as Lovecraft's beast's, The guy was a horror genius and Thomas's shows some of this with different aspect's of his tales.Jeffrey takes us from Outerspace, to backwoods villages to Antarctica Harshness all with that weird cameos occult feel. there's 27 Tales in this book allRefreshingly different and well worth a read.

[GD · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far the best Mythos book I've ever read. THIS WAS FUCKING AWESOME. I bought it months ago when I was on a drunk buying spree, but was so tired of Mythos stuff by the time I got around to it I just let it sit there for months more. I loved the cover, though. I finally started reading it a few days ago, and was totally fucking hooked. Not nearly as wordy or atmospheric as a lot of Mythos writing is, and not nearly as much irony as, say, Nick Mamatas' recent book, this collection of stories are told pretty directly, no florid writing (except in one of the parody pieces), and excellent plots. These stories run as a rule pretty short, no fat and gristle, just lean, mean badass stories. I can't believe I'd never heard of this guy before.

Some of my favorites:

"The Bones/Avatars/Young of the Old Ones": These are the first three consecutive stories that are all linked together. They take place in the future on another planet in a place called Paxton (I think?) but colloquially called Punktown. It's kind of like Shadowrun, alien races living together, crime, magic, sci-fi all rolled into one. The PERFECT setting for a Mythos story that never ever would have occurred to me. I was really excited to learn that this writer has written a fucking ton of stuff about Punktown, so I'll be jumping up and down with need-to-pee excitement to read those.

"I Married a Shoggoth": You'd think with a title like this it would be a parody, but it was actually a really good story, not parody at all, and about a dude using a shoggoth for a really sensible purpose, hahahaha. Again, something I never would have thought of.

"Conglomerate": Watch out for multi-billion dollar conglomerates buying up buildings that could connect together on a map into a beastly symbol that would raise aeon-aged giant aliens.

"Book Worm": A neat twist on the trope of the locked book. Awesome background with the mafia and awesome ending.

"Through the Obscure Glass": One very terrifying scene where this woman hears some scratching at glass sounds underneath a tarp and lifts it up, and her husband shouts out, "Don't let them see you!"

"The Servitors": WAY out there story about these creatures who slave away keeping the wound of a planet-sized alien open to dump slops into it for food. Really disgusting, and really neat dimension-jumping into our world.

"Out of the Belly of Sheol": A retelling of the Biblical Jonah story. It wasn't a whale that swallowed him and spat him out a few days later...

"The Face of Baphomet": A short story that somehow became something like the Da Vinci Code, about the Knights Templar actually being Shub Niggurath-worshiping homosexuals.

"Cells": A sad story about a scientist racing against the clock to grow a blobby cell culture for his wife who's dying of cancer to inhabit when she goes.

"The House on the Plain": Spooky story about astronauts in the far future landing on a totally desolate, lifeless planet and finding an entire Victorian house sitting there, and they go inside. This one was SUCH a great idea.

"The Fourth Utterance": Man, Jeffrey Thomas is just full of ideas. This one is kind of reminiscent of the movie Miracle Mile, the story getting kicked off with someone hearing something on a phone that was a wrong number. In this case, it's messages left on an answering machine. The entire plot takes place over 5 or 6 phone messages that are all really short (remember answering machines cutting you off mid-sentence in the 90s?), and is absolutely genius in its compactness. What is just hinted at (because the person who should have gotten the messages knows enough to fill in the blanks), in true Lovecraft fashion, forces your imagination to create something far creepier than anything that could have been described. My favorite story in the book.

"Pazuzu's Children": Another INCREDIBLY unlikely setting for a story like this, this one during Desert Storm, a shot-down (was he SHOT down, really?) pilot is interrogated by Iraqis that don't quite seem like your typical Muslim soldiers, wanting to know why the Americans have ordered this particular site to be attacked. There is a scene where a troupe of dudes are running down the hall with a severed black tentacle the size of a tree, and the ending, again, fantastic.

"What Washes Ashore": Short story about a woman who wanders off in a beach town and finds a seemingly abandoned souvenir shop selling random crap that washes up on the shore, mainly shells. She takes the wrong one.

"The Cellar Gods": Incredible finish to the book, a longer story about a medical student who takes in a beautiful, mysterious Asian (Asian?) girl after her people are persecuted by a lynch mob and all killed and burned. Again in classic Lovecraft boxing moves, the hints and feints freak you out more than what is told. There were reports of giant stone heads sticking out of the floor of the basement in the warehouse that was burned down, a giant black cow-like thing that burrowed into the ground in the middle of a snowfield seen from afar in the middle of the night, an ominous CRACK that begins to appear in the face of the main character's beloved, the slow retreat of the mysterious girl into her locked cellar room, refusing to see anyone, and finally, the whipcrack of an ending when the main character and his father break into the locked room after not hearing anything from the other side for a day. In that one scene there is so much scary shit, and the tragic, sad ending just had me hitting the "home" button on my Kindle in despair.

[Oscar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy buena colección de relatos de Jeffrey Thomas, autor que leo por primera vez. Sus libros son sobre todo de terror, pero le gusta mezclar la ciencia ficción. Y le sale muy bien. Aquí hay varios relatos ambientados en su conocido universo Punktown, mis favoritos del libro. Ese juego con las otras dimensiones, añadiendo una trama detectivesca, es estupendo. El protagonista es John Bell, que empieza siendo detective, y lucha para que ciertas criaturas no atraviesen el velo hacia nuestro mundo. El resto de cuentos utiliza la mitología creada por Lovecraft y su Círculo, con Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, Yog-Sothoth… Además, añade un grimorio de su cosecha, el Libro de Metal. También homenajea a Pugmire y su Valle de Sesqua; a Pazuzu, e incluso hay un giro con Jonás y la ballena, siendo aquí la ballena “otra” bestia.

En resumen, un gran añadido a los Mitos.

[Jamie Grefe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read much Lovecraft, but reading Thomas's collection has given me a grounding in the Lovecraft worldview and what can be done with it. Jeffrey does a great job taking us to outer space, to backwoods towns, while showing us the dangers of conjuration, and those little rips in reality where evil is itching to leak out of.

[T.E. Grau · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the finest, best-written, and varied, truly Lovecraftian "concept collections" I've ever read.

Jeffrey Thomas is simple a master of the Mythos arena, and one of the best working writers in any genre.

[Carpentermt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The enterprising small press Mythos Books has finally been releasing some titles that we have all been waiting on for some time (And some we had no idea were pending release; their website is extremely user unfriendly compared to Elder Signs Press, Hippocampus Press or Golden Gryphon Press. On the other hand Wildside Press and Pagan Publishing won't win any prizes for keeping up to date either...), like The Taint of Lovecraft and The Tales of Inspector LeGrasse. Coming soon is a highly anticipated collection by Walter deBill, The Black Sutra. I feel like I was waiting on Unholy Dimensions for more than a year.

Jeffrey Thomas is a highly respected horror and science fiction author who certainly needs no introduction from me (all us reviewers write this before we introduce someone who needs no introduction...). He is the creator of Punktown, a wild, weird and wonderful city on the alien planet of Oasis. Originally named Paxton, it has been renamed Punktown by its inhabitants, a mixture of humans living side by side with other almost human races, and other completely inhuman species. Full of crime, drugs, desperation, poverty and intrigue, Punktown is a violent place. So far the Punktown saga may be read in Thomas's collection Punktown, the collection he edited Punktown:Third Eye (guest authors set stories in Thomas' world), Thomas' novel Monstrocity (which is an entirely mythosian outing; Punktown's human-like races have their own traditions of grimoires, and names for the mythos entities and the Elder Gods), and new collection by Jeffrey Thomas and his brother Scott, Punktown: Shades of Grey. This last is the best and edgiest Punktown collection so far!

Although Thomas is best known for the Punktown series, HPL's mythos was influential for him and he has often applied his highly polished gifts to mythos stories. The bulk of these are now assembled in this trade paperback from Mythos Books. All of these titles have seen the light of print before, except The Young of the Old Ones and What Washes Ashore, newly written for this book. However, most of these were in periodicals like Deathrealms, Cthulhu Codex and Midnight Shambler, so only an assiduous mythos collector like James Ambuehl would already have them. In fact, as I mostly collect books, I only had The Cellar Gods from 1999's New Mythos Legends.

Here are the contents, although not in the order they appear in the book:

THE BONES OF THE OLD ONES

THE AVATARS OF THE OLD ONES

THE YOUNG OF THE OLD ONES

BOOK WORM

ASCENDING TO HELL

THE ICE SHIP

YOO-HOO, CTHULHU

THROUGH OBSCURE GLASS

THE HOUSE ON THE PLAIN

THE BOARDED WINDOW

LOST SOUL

THE SERVITORS

SERVILE

I MARRIED A SHOGGOTH

THE THIRD EYE

RED GLASS

CELLS

CONGLOMERATE

THE DOOM IN THE ROOM

THE FACE OF BAPHOMET

PAZUZU'S CHILDREN

THE CELLAR GODS

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

CORPSE CANDLES

WHAT WASHES ASHORE

OUT OF THE BELLY OF SHEOL

THE FOURTH UTTERANCE

Some housekeeping: This is a Trade Paperback with 267 pages. It's all fiction; no author's notes or introductions. The cover is by Jamie Oberschlake, and it is highly effective, showing a Cthulhu-like entity crouched over an ancient tome. There is more interior art by Peter Worthy that didn't do too much for me. Thomas continues the Lovecraft Circle tradition of mentioning other mythos authors he likes in some of his stories. For example, one of the cultist victims in The Bones of the Old Ones is Willy Pugmire, some action in The Avatars of the Old Ones takes place in the Ambuehl Building and a note from S. Sargent appears in Corpse Candles. Thomas also pays homage directly to W. Pugmire by setting a story Through Obscure Glass in Pugmire's Sesqua Valley. This was a daring story, I think, because no one can really write with Pugmire's sensuous prose or make the visceral Sesqua Valley come alive like he can. The trilogy of stories that opens the books is set in the Punktown universe; The Bones of the Old Ones actually takes place in Punktown. HPL names like Ward and Poe names like Pym appear in some stories. Much of Thomas' approach to the mythos (or Yog Sothothery if you prefer) is very conventional, the Great Old Ones were cast into imprisonment by the Elder Gods. The Elder Sign has unusual potency against them and their servitors. The grimoires are the usual suspects, except for Thomas' own The Book of Awe and The Metal Book.

My summary is that I highly recommend this collection. I think, however, that the stories written later, like What Washes Ashore are more deftly written than the earlier ones (well, our favorite authors are always honing their craft, aren't they?). Also I tended to like those stores more tangentially mythos, like What Washes Ashore, more than the more conventional Old Ones trilogy. The poetry, The Ice Ship and Ascending to Hell, and the comic relief, the poem YooHoo, Cthulhu and the story The Doom in the Room, were all low points for me. Others might like them more. Unfairly perhaps, in GW Thomas' Book of the Black Sun, I thought the sum was more than the parts. I was engaged all the while in that book but saw no flashes of brilliance. The best mythos stories sparkle, like the dazzling Annandale's Final Draft in Dead But Dreaming; they match the best that horror, fantasy or science fiction of any stripe has to offer. For what it's worth, while I think the bulk of these stories are well crafted at a high level, none of them really stopped me in my tracks. When I read One Way Conversation by Sammons in Horrors Beyond I had to pause to catch my breath and immediately reread it. Not so with Unholy Dimensions, although mostly the stories are very good reads and a few were quite fine.

I'll briefly comment on some of the stories; mild to moderate spoilers may follow, so don't read further if that bothers you.

THE BONES OF THE OLD ONES

THE AVATARS OF THE OLD ONES

THE YOUNG OF THE OLD ONES - These 3 stories, set in the Punktown universe, are the most Derlethian tales. Similar Derleth's heroes, an unwilling detective John Bell is forced to accept that mythosian entities lurk beyond the veil and he has to sacrifice himself to oppose them. These were good straight up mythos stories.

BOOK WORM - I highly enjoyed this story, where a lover of antiquarian books and arcane mysteries sneaks into his grandmother's house to peruse an ancient volume she intends to sell as part of his late grandfather's estate. Sometimes you can really lose yourself in a book... LOST SOUL, even though a very different sort of story, also dealt with using a book as a portal into another dimension or reality. LOST SOUL was also a very good read.

THE HOUSE ON THE PLAIN - Space travelers find an old Victorian house on the plains of an inhospitable planet. Some dabbler in ancient lore managed to get himself transported here many years ago...

In both THE BOARDED WINDOW and RED GLASS, for some reason it is possible to get a glimpse of another dimension through the mundane surfaces of our own. Both were extremely well written.

THE SERVITORS - Another excellent story! As a strange alien tries to escape its mundane and eternal existence, the human protagonist, living an isolated and alienated existence, gradually loses all touch with her humanity. The parallel tales converge very neatly.

SERVILE - The protagonist is hired as a servant for a respected archaeologist who is now disabled. It turns out the archaeologist herself is just a servant of a darker reality...This was OK, not my favorite but still good.

I MARRIED A SHOGGOTH - What would you do if you could summon a shoggoth and it would obey your telepathic commands, assuming any shape and performing any action you chose? And the shoggoths did evolve intelligence of a sort...

THE THIRD EYE - An Arkham detective, ruined by years of drinking too much and seeing too much, bequeaths his son with a strangely shaped amulet. Good enough read, not my favorite.

CELLS - Looking beyond the veil of existence, can you call back a recently departed soul if you have a vessel waiting for it? OK, again not one of my favorites.

CONGLOMERATE - Suppose you find out the modern art in your company's foyer actually has a specific purpose, and the chief executive is really not who he says to be but has much darker, more cosmic aims?

THE FACE OF BAPHOMET - What were the real secrets of the Knights Templar? Has their order really been expunged? Interesting little tale!

PAZUZU'S CHILDREN - This was one of the best stories in the book!! It has a different take on what really happened during the first Gulf War.

THE CELLAR GODS - Another well crafted story of a man who befriends and falls in love with a lady from Leng, keeping her concealed in his cellar for many ears while she manifests her true heritage.

THE WRITING ON THE WALL - Likeable and too brief, this is the story of an archaeologist who discovers some mysterious glyphs. It sort of reminded me of a story, I think by Lin Carter, of an Egyptologist who discovers some hieroglyphics that show the entire history of the world as well as the future.

CORPSE CANDLES - A detective investigates two brothers who just might be wizards and have an age old enmity.

WHAT WASHES ASHORE - My absolute favorite in the collection, here I saw the full power of Thomas's writing skills. For my money, it edged out PAZUZU'S CHILDREN by the barest margin, I don't know why, maybe because the imagery and prose were just spot on for the mood Thomas sought to create. You never know what you can find in an old seashell shop.

OUT OF THE BELLY OF SHEOL - Well, now you know what really swallowed Jonah...

THE FOURTH UTTERANCE - In a very inventive slant for a mythos story, a woman keeps getting messages on her answering machine from some poor sod who has pierced the veil of reality. The thing is, they are all wrong numbers and she's not sure what to do...

THROUGH OBSCURE GLASS - If you are ever in Washington state, pay a visit to the Sesqua Valley. Plan to stay a spell...

Really, all mythos fans must get this volume. The best stories are top notch, and the overall level of creativity and polish in the prose puts most mythos collections in the shade. Best of all, most of these have not been reproduced ad infinitum in other books. Also best is that Jeffrey Thomas is still busily creating worlds for us to explore. I'm sure this is not all his mythos output. I could swear I read a Yellow Sign story set in Punktown by him some years ago that absolutely knocked my socks off. Perhaps if this title is a big enough success for Mythos Books they could be persuaded to give us another volume!

Addendum: since I wrote this review I regret to say that Mythos Books is on indefinite hiatus.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Those of us who have been a regular 'user' of C.J. Henderson's two-fisted hard hitters taking on Mythos nasties, would find this set of short stories rather usual stuff. However, those who are used to Lovecraft's original version of doomed people getting suckered into cultists and others nefarious plans, would be shocked.
Overall, nothing very new. But crisp reads indeed. The sci-fi touches remain superfluous and incongrous. Therefore, readers might view this as pure fantasy. Otherwise things would be rather jarring for all concerned.

[Edmund de Wight · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just got finished reading Unholy Dimensions by Jeffrey Thomas.
It's a collection of Lovecraftian tales. Let me say, this was an enjoyable book overall.
There are some standard tropes done in the style of the older Lovecraft stories - right down to the verbosity of the old writing style - which were a lovely homage to the master. There were also some done in stanzas that reminded me of Poe's poems, it was a refreshingly different method of writing this sort of story.
I really liked his sci-fi versions taking the mythos into the depths of space. After all that's where these creatures all came from anyway. That inspired me to think about the mythos in different lights.
I hope that the futuristic trio of stories that open the book evolve or already have evolved into additional stories or a novel, they were really interesting.
I learned some wonderful descriptive techniques reading this that will inspire my own writing.
Give it a read, it's well worth your time.

[Patton McGinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

hello children, can you spell "cthulhu?"

[Jason Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of short stories of weird fiction and Cthulhu mythos. All very atmospheric with Thomas's twisted way of looking at the world (which is a good thing!).

If I had to choose couple of favourites from the book they would be:
The Servitors - a nice perspective on parallel universes and what happens when that veil is breached.
Corpse Candles - a family feud taken to the extremes.
The Boarded WIndow - another story about worlds colliding with those on the other side being just as fearful as the narrator.

A good addition to the shelves of any weird fiction/Lovecraftian fan.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

How is this guy not more famous than he is? These stories are really, really good.

[Hugo S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heed the mithos!

Like reading the original stories, this long collection of lovecraftian tales do not stray far from, whatwe all of those familiar with H.P. Lovecraft work, the Cthulu mithos. I enjoyed some of the stories more than others but all in all the theme was consistent, the typical lover of H.P. Lovecraft will enjoy Unholy Dimensions, those who are not familiar with lovecraftian horror might not as it might get a little too repetitive.

[The Smoog · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection, I really enjoyed all of the stories here. It’s worth saying that unlike a lot of collections billed as such, every one of the shorts in this book has a Lovecraftian vibe to it. Although I’ve read a couple of Mr. Thomas's works before, after reading this I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for more.

[Andreas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice compilation of short stories. Some were not so great, most were pretty good, and some really made my skin crawl (in the best way possible). Overall a very enjoyable read if you're into Lovecraftian stuff.

[Trace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic Weird Fiction

Jeffrey Thomas has absolutely blown me away! As a huge reader of weird fiction, and Lovecraftian stories in general, I find this collection to be teeming with a dark, though sometimes humorous energy that just grabs a hold of you and doesn't let you leave. I often found myself saying "one more story! Just one more!" And I did just that. I read, and I read, and I loved every second of it. I'm telling you now, if you like weird fiction, especially of the Lovecraftian variety, buy this book! Physical copy or otherwise! You will NOT regret it.